


Ponce de Leon's Folly

by Bodldops



Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: Gen, Yuletide 2011
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-22
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 18:23:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/298701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bodldops/pseuds/Bodldops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes cases just refuse to play by the normal playbook, even when they aren't obviously Grimm-related.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. We're Goin' to the Zoo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eisoj5](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisoj5/gifts).



> From the prompt:  
> "Thus far, source-wise, Grimm is sticking pretty close to the fairy tales of the Brothers. I would love to see a story that goes beyond those European roots to the mythical tales of other cultures, something that might bring in the cultural perspectives of, say, Sergeant Wu."
> 
> You got it, Eisoj5!
> 
> All bizarre German and canon slips are mine, hope you enjoy. Happy Yuletide!

 

 _"And so his heart consented to this act of disobedience, and he tried to persuade himself that he was doing the right thing in breaking his promise."_

It was an amazingly well-planned upscale event, with men in black tie and women in their glittering finest. The pavillion had been decked out to the nines, all gold and lights and draped scarlet. There were attentive waiters circulating trays full of nibbles, a string quartet in an unobtrusive alcove, and a lion roaring off somewhere in the distance. The Oregon Zoo's annual black-tie fundraiser event was definitely one of the parties to be seen at.

It was definitely not one of the parties to be seen arguing at.

A young, dark-haired man in a fine-cut suit stormed down one of the zoo's impeccibly kept paths, his jaw clenched in anger. His iPhone rang discretely from his breast pocket, and when he answered, he was only just barely civil in his tone.

"Jasper? It's Thomas. You got my message? Yes, we need to meet tomorrow. It turns out you were right, after all." His footsteps snapped authoritiatively against the cement as he listened to the reply, his wanderings taking him towards the Amazon forest displays, the birds and frogs not even noticed in his ire.

"Give it a rest, old man. Rubbing it in isn't helping." Another pause, and then he added, "Ten o'clock tomorrow morning is fine. I'll take you out to lunch after, let you get all your told-you-so's out then." Ending the call, he sighed, and perched on the arm of one of the ubiquitous benches. Out of his trouser pocket, he pulled out a small wooden box, laquerred a warm cherry red. He had never been tempted to open it before, but... why not? Sure, she had made him promise not to, but now that demand made the mystery of the box even more interesting. Besides, what did he have to lose? Musingly, he turned the box over and over in his hands, deep in thought as the sounds of the Amazon rang out around him.

Early morning light was just beginning to filter through the leaves of the trees as Carrie Prout made her rounds, sleepily moving from one enclosure to the next to make sure the evidence of the previous night's party was all tidied away, and the zoo was ready for the day's tourists. Her garbage cart rattled behind her unsteadily, jerking her arm as it seemed to catch on every crack and dip of the concrete. She promised herself blearily that she'd finish the Amazon enclosures, then go get another cup of coffee - who thought a bunch of people with too much money could be so messy? Carrie groaned loudly when she saw what awaited her - there by the beginning of the flooded forest was what appeared to be a man, asleep. It wasn't bad enough they left their trash, they had to get drunk and fall asleep in the shrubbery too?

"Hey buddy. Rise and shine, this isn't The Nines!" She called, irritably. The man, or at least she assumed it was a man from the fancy trousers and highly polished shoes, didn't move. It was good for him it wasn't too cold, or too wet last night - he looked like he'd just fallen asleep where he'd fallen over once drink, or whatever it was, got the better of him.

"Hey buddy." She called again, then giving it up as a bad job, she stormed over with her trash pic in hand just in case he was an angry drunk when woken.

Her screams could be heard all over the zoo when she discovered that the thing she took to be a sleeping guest was instead a very well-dressed corpse. A very long-dead, very well-dressed corpse.


	2. Cancel the Zombie Apocolypse

"So, tell me again why we've been hauled out here to stare at some crypt escapee?" Between regular cases and those that are tasking his admittedly ill-defined Grimm duties, Nick hasn't gotten a lot of sleep lately. Thus, the early-morning call that dragged him out of the nice warm bed he was sharing with his nice warm... still-girlfriend was not at all well recieved. He found it slightly disturbing that Juliette had already reached the point where her only response to him leaving was to sleepily pat his arm in passing before falling asleep again. He didn't dare tell his partner about this - he's sure the jokes about behaving like an old married couple before they were even engaged wouldn't be particularly funny.

  
He hadn't been to the Portland Zoo in years - he and Juliette often made plans to visit, but every time they settled on the date, something would come up - she would be saddled with an emergency at the clinic, or he'd find himself in some sort of bind with a case, and without fail they would have to reschedule to some other time. It was beginning to become a bit of a joke between them. He had to give them points for cleanliness - despite the major bash that was held last night, it seemed that only this one piece of law-breaking debris was left out.

  
Desperately, he clutched the paper coffee cup one of the beat officers thrust into his hands as he ducked under the fluttering yellow tape. Fervently, he willed the caffeine to make his sleep-deprived brain a bit less fuzzy - all of the hooting and screeching going on in the near-by environments was plucking at his nerves. The only thing that made the whole thing a bit better was his partner, Hank, didn't look much better than he did in the early-morning light. The corpse, of course, came in dead last in this particular beauty contest. Assuming by the clothing that their victim was a 'he', the fellow wouldn't have looked out of place in any ritzy party - well-cut suit, fine silk tie, Italian leather shoes glossed to a high shine, expensive watch; it all spelled out a man who had money and knew how to spend it. Of course, all of that finery just couldn't hide the fact that his face had crumpled into anonymity and the gleam of his watch now competed against the duller shine of exposed bone Sergeant Wu, looking enviably energetic, stood to greet them.

  
"We did think our zombie here was a prank at first, if a deeply disturbing one... but then we found this." Crouching again, Wu gently turned the corpse's right hand, revealing an untarnished silvery ring. It wasn't just any old ring, Nick realized quickly - highly ornate, it was clearly more than a decoration. "It appears to be a college class ring - MIT, class of 2001." Nick had cautiously sank back on his heels beside Wu, and could see that as well - a beaver sat in front of a city skyline, a second Earth rising behind the buildings. If he looked closely, he could see the scroll the beaver held was actually two numbers, one above and one below - 01 above, and 76 below.

  
"He can't be a 1976 graduate?" Nick asked, playing devil's advocate, not ashamed to be completely non-conversant on the details of college rings. It was Hank who shook his head.

  
"Nah, I've seen these before - they came up in a forgery case a couple years ago. Someone had claimed to find a 1930-class ring and was selling it on E-Bay. The only problem was, he 'found' more than one, usually about every two weeks, which was about how long it took him to make and attempt to age them." His partner stretched a hand out to ghost a finger over the tiny beaver on the ring's bevel. "This guy's facing to the right - only two classes have done that." All three of them were hovering over the victim, and Nick supposed they must look like a trio of vultures. He found it sad, momentarily, that not one of them felt it necessary to complain about the stench. Clearly they had done this a few too many times.

  
"Any word on cause of death?" Hank asked, sounding resigned. It was true that they seemed to be catching all of the oddball cases lately, and Nick couldn't help but wonder if some of that was his fault... or that before, they just hadn't noticed how weird thing were. He really hoped it was the latter. Wu grimaced at Hank's question, and Nick ducked his head to hide a grin.

  
"Dr. Harper has already come and gone - she made you two look almost perky in comparison." The sergeant grumbled, evidently still put out about having to put up with medical examiner, who hated early mornings even more than Nick did. "From what she told me, that's not going to be an easy question to answer." Nick eyed the decomposing corpse and nodded absently. No nice fresh wounds to point out the obvious this time.

  
"How about an easier question then - do we have a name yet?" For the first time this morning, Wu actually looked pleased about something.

  
"Even better - we have his iPhone. Give me a half hour in the lab, and I'll get you everything." For all their joking that Wu was supernaturally gifted with electronics due to his ethnicity, it was true that Wu was a minor wizard when it came to all sorts of gadgets and devices.

  
"Any other clues to go on?" Though, perhaps, calling them 'clues' was a bit optimistic.

  
"Not much - if he was a guest at the party last night we should be able to find a picture of him by process of elimination. Oh, and we found this at his feet - we're trying to find its origin now." The glossy photo showed a beautiful, inlaid box, something Nick could see costing a pretty penny - this guy had expensive tastes. With a sigh Nick stood, gently cracking his neck. It was time to get down to the extensive foot-work that came with any case - interviewing anyone and everyone who might have input, starting with the junior zookeeper sitting off to one side with a shock blanket wrapped tightly around her. He stared at her for a moment, but it seemed that this time he was in luck - her features stayed resolutely human. Maybe this time the world of fairy tales would stay out of his work life.


	3. Twenty Questions, No Answers

Questioning was usually Nick's strength. Behaviors and slips of the tongue gave him details that others often missed. He had always been able to do that - of all the things that his detective work demanded of him, this task was a joy. Today, however, it was about as much fun as pulling teeth on a _Blutbad_.

 

The zookeeper knew nothing - they didn't even bother bringing her in to the station. They talked to her for a solid quarter-hour, and recieved only variations on 'he's really dead, isn't he' and 'I'm supposed to be cleaning the enclosures', neither of which told them anything they didn't already know. They gave up entirely after Nick asked what her typical day would look like, and they received an agonizingly in-depth list of everything she had to clean, when her breaks were, and how many other dead bodies she's ever stumbled across. The answer to that was, it seemed, three fish and one of the birds. Nick made a show of writing it down, since she seemed to need that validation. When they let her go, both of them breathed sighs of relief - if she had been a material witness, they would have had to put up with more of that.

 

Sergeant Wu found them soon after they arrived back at the station, bearing a goldmine of information. As promised, he was able to crack into the smartphone found on the victim, and thankfully, this guy liked to use his phone to its full potential. Their victim's name was Thomas Marksberg - a confirmed graduate of MIT in 2001 in management, and was serving as a very highly-paid upper-level manager in a local advertising firm. He had been a guest at the zoo's benefit function the night before, and according to photos on the phone, he had looked perfectly alive and normal then. He had been accompanied by his wife Aliene, a pretty brunette , though she hadn't looked entirely pleased in the pictures. The last phone call recorded, started and ended around ten in the evening, was to his family lawyer, one Jasper Follingsworth. That was, unfortunately the last bit of useful information they got for the rest of the day.

 

Hank took the lawyer lead, tracking down an older gentleman in his elegantly appointed office. It was an almost stereotypically lawyerish - all heavy wood and leather, with rows of shelves full of thick books, obviously expensive furnishings, and a gaggle of young, vaguely desperate-looking interns running files and coffee all over the office. The man himself didn't disappoint either - an older white-haired man near retirement age, if not a little past it, he still had an imposingly firm handshake when he greeted Hank.

 

"And what can I do for you today, detective?" Jasper had asked in an upper-crusty sort of voice that immediately made Hank wonder if the captain had a point about dressing a bit more sharply.

 

"I'm here as part of an investigation into the death of one of your clients - a Thomas Marksberg. Did you..." Hank trailed off, stunned into silence as the lawyer's face crumpled into an expression of shock and grief. The next several minutes were spent comforting the old man, trying to get a hold back on this investigation. It turned out Jasper had known Thomas when he had been a young child, as a friend of the family, and had been something of a mentor. Hank was then treated to a full accounting of Thomas' life, from his early life in Portland, to his university career, to his adult life as a manager and member of the high-flying elite. Finally Hank had just about as much as he could stand of 'The Many Accomplishments of Thomas Marksberg', and breeched the question he'd actually come to ask.

 

"Mister Follingsworth - Thomas called you last night, around ten p.m. Could you tell me what that call was about?" Hank interrupted a grand re-telling of some sort of corporate minor victory, earning a slightly irate look and a sigh, but the lawyer shrugged off his irritation.

 

"I'm only telling you this because I believe most is public knowledge already - Thomas and Aliene were headed towards a divorce. Luckily he listened to me when they were engaged and a solid prenuputial agreement was already in effect. It was entirely no-fault, no one could believe either of them were happy. Aliene is a lovely girl, I'm sure, but... she just wasn't right for Thomas." The lawyer concluded disdainfully, and after that, Hank learned very little of interest, leaving the office shortly thereafter.

 

Nick, who had spoken to the wife, knew that if the couple had gone forward with the divorce, it would have been uncontested. He had met the widow at the station, where she postively identified the clothes and the ring. Understandably upset after that experience, he ushered her into one of the interview rooms, and fetched her a passable cup of coffee.

 

"I'm sorry to have to go through this, Mrs. Marksberg." His voice was pitched soothingly, though his proverbial antennae were quivering at the guilt written all over her face. Aliene was, perhaps a bit unfortunately, forty-trying-to-be-twenty, with the help of extensive plastic surgery and what Nick suspected was a hefty dose of botox based on how her expression stayed static no matter how emotional her voice became as she talked about her husband.

 

"I can't believe this is happening. I thought he was just sulking again - he said he was going to stay at the Fairmont tonight, and when he didn't come by in the morning for a change of clothing I just thought he was still upset over the argument last night." She half-sobbed, half-babbled to Nick. "It was so stupid - he wanted to go out for drinks afterwards, make a night of it, but I hate these public events, and I wanted an early night... things just got out of control. All of the sudden we're both shouting and he's storming off, leaving me to spend the rest of the party ignoring other people's stares. I got a text from him later, saying he'd be at the hotel - we did that a lot, lately. It was better than keeping the argument going all night." Normally, Nick would be overjoyed at this point, so happy to finally have a lead. The only problem was... he believed her. He believed every word. She just wasn't lying. He kept at it for a while longer, but he didn't learn anything of note, and eventually sent her on her way. The only thing he couldn't figure out about him was the glaring age disconnect between Aliene and Thomas. Certainly love knew no age, but money usually did... and not usually in that direction. With a shake of his head, he decided he really did need to stop becoming so cynical.

 

The pair re-convened at one of their favorite coffee shops, away from the watchful eyes of the captain and the bustle that never failed to intrude on any strategy-building. As they shared their mutually unfruitful conversations, Nick wondered if they were just cursed to never get normal investigations again, whether or not they were related to his Grimm duties. Thoroughly discouraged, they decided to split the remaining obvious tasks. Hank headed back to the station to do some more research into their victim's life, and Nick went to scout around at the victim's office.

 

There, he found more of the same - Thomas was loved, Thomas was amazing, Thomas deserved better than Aliene, Thomas could do no wrong. He wandered through the dead manager's office, but he didn't find anything unusual - just the normal assortment of loose ends, a coffee mug with the MIT logo, a few files of what were obviously business papers. Nothing that could tell him why this well-liked man had suddenly become an extra for the latest zombie movie. As he was about to leave, he remembered that most of the calendar dates in the smartphone were annontated in a short-hand they hadn't yet cracked, and asked to see the man's secretary for his schedule. The girl wasn't in - family emergency, but one of the other secretaries in the office was glad to help once she heard what he wanted, and why.

 

The petite raven-haired beauty seemed genuinely grieved at the news of Thomas' death, something that didn't shock him at this point. There was, however, one very odd thing - as she was fetching the details he was looking for, he watched the ebb and flow of the workplace. In one of the many mirrored surfaces, a reflection caught his eye - the secretary, when his back was turned, suddenly took on smoother, rounder features, with overly large eyes and a beakish mouth, her skin suddenly pallid and almost greenish. But when he turned around again, she had regained her normal, human appearance. It didn't mean anything, obviously, just that she wasn't as human as she proported to be, but still. The more he knew about the creatures which inhabited his new world, the better off he'd be. He resolved to do some research tonight... after calling Hank to let him know that once again, he'd hit a dead end. The only thing this trip gained him was an armful of datebooks that served as a backup to the smartphone, all kept neatly piled and bound in the missing secretary's desk. He thanked his creature helper, and tried to ignore the way she always made sure there was a solid piece of furniture between him and her. He didn't wonder, any more, why his aunt had been antagonistic of any Grimm creature that came her way - it was hard to be looked upon with suspicion from people you haven't done anything to.


	4. Hitting the Books

He knew, guiltily, that he should be home, with Juliette. Eventually he won't need his aunt's voice nagging at the back of his brain - his girlfriend will leave of her own volition because he just isn't home enough. It's like his days of being a rookie detective, though. He just wants to know more about this new world he's found himself in, what all of the creatures he's now seeing are, and how he's supposed to make sense of it all. There was a reason he didn't have a stable relationship in those days. So instead of being with Juliette, he was in his aunt's trailer, searching through ancient books after a day of looking through unproductive public sources of information on his victim. He saw a few more of the new characters that make up his world today - one of the trees at the zoo had a face, he'd swear; he'd spotted a smaller, blonder version of the Jagerbaar; and there was the secretary at his homocide victim's workplace. Splattering rain tapped against the sides of the trailer, providing white noise while he thumbed through the heavy reference books, almost making this bizarre, weapon-heavy corner of the world seem cozy.

 

Hours later, he almost mindlessly flipped past one of the pages he'd been looking for. There, in the slightly messy sketching style the main author of these books seemed to have preferred, were the over-wide eyes and beakish nose he'd seen on the secretary, out of the corner of his eye, before she'd made some excuse and disappeared into some other part of the office. The article on the creatures - _Seeleute_ \- was disappointingly short. The ones on creatures who didn't regularly maim and mangle the unsuspecting humans around them were always disappointingly short. There wasn't even a separate leaflet, never mind a separate book, for this particular kind. The article could be summed up as a brief physical description and the somewhat uninspiring note that they didn't tend to be dangerous unless riled. Since this applied to everyone from the artist to the dock worker, at least in Nick's experience, it wasn't exactly a helpful bit of advice. He would just have to get more information another way.

 

The morning dawned bright and clear, the sun blazing between the remainder of the previous night's clouds. It was still cool and damp under the branches of the trees though, so it took Nick a while to find a tree to lean against while waiting, since he didn't particularly want to get soaked through.

 

 Thankfully, his target was a predictable soul.

 

Soon, measured tread of someone making very good time over the gloppy trailway could be heard, and Nick started counting down in his head. Five... four... three... two... one...

"Nick?" The footsteps slowed, and stopped, and before too long an incredulous _blutbad_ rounded the curve of the trail. Eddie Monroe - solidly-built, almost plain-looking, disturbingly not-out-of-breath, gave the detective a stare that could be adequately interpreted as questioning Nick's sanity. "Man, are you kidding me right now?"

 

"Morning, Eddie." He grinned in the face of Eddie's shock, never tired of tweaking his informant-turned-friend just a little.

 

"You do know most sane people run away from _Blutbaten_ in the woods? They don't sit there and wait to be stumbled upon like... like..." Eddie's exasperation rose to a point that he couldn't even properly scold the newbie Grimm as much as he richly deserved. Nick's grin grew a little wider, and he pushed himself off the tree he'd been making himself comfortable against.

 

"That mean you're not happy to see me?" There's a growl, a faint trickle of a warning, "Look Monroe, there's a couple of folks I ran into that I'd..."

 

"No." Eddie's gesture was sharp, cutting Nick off before he could get out a full request. "You know, you could wait. You knew I'd be home later, there is no reason to be out here. Beside that, I thought we were done with the whole Grimm-o-pedia thing. What happened to all that research you were doing? No, nevermind. I am not getting dragged into this, I'm busy, Nick. I have routines. Routines are good. Besides, you already owe me way too many favors."

 

"I have that Columbian roast you like so much back in the car." For a long moment, the two men watched each other, though Nick noticed the forest was still unnaturally quiet. No self-respecting prey animal willingly hung around when there was a _blutbad_ , reformed or not. Eddie sighed, and with a half-shrug, half-wave, he continued on the path which lead back to his house.

 

"So, what is it this time? Can't be anything too horrible, or dear old Aunt Marie would have written something about it." Nick let the comment and the associated sarcasm about his aunt pass - he'd pushed his luck far enough already, and he was pretty sure any protests that she hadn't been a bad lady would be completely, if politely, ignored.

 

" _Seeleute_ \- what do you know about them?" It was so easy to fall into his usual patterns of interrogation. Eddie gave him another disbelieving look, this one tinged with a bit of exasperation.

 

"What, turtles? You can't believe they're up to anything. They're practically saints." Nick raised an eyebrow at that, but Eddie was undaunted. "No really, it's true. I doubt a Grimm has ever gone after one - you can't exactly nice someone to death. What's this one gotten mixed up with?"

 

"As far as I know, nothing." Nick admitted, shrugging in turn. "I just noticed her when getting some information on a murder victim."

 

"What, the zoo guy?" Nick blinked, and Eddie's tone became a shade defensive. "What? It's all over the news." It had been - thankfully the force had a good PR department, all of whom were more than happy to deal with the hoardes of reporters demanding all the latest details with minimal imput from Hank and himself.

 

"Yeah, the zoo guy - she's a secretary in his office."

 

"Huh.  Well, she's not your girl anyway." Eddie insisted, "Rumor has it they're monogamous. Like, undying love, mate for life monogamous. The paper said the zoo guy was married, right?" It was Nick's turn to look exasperated.

 

"You know, just because I'm a Grimm, doesn't make every case I see from here on out Grimm-related. I do still take other cases." Eddie had the good grace to look sheepish, and by unspoken agreement, the conversation veered away from all things Grimm related. Instead, they discussed the chances of the Blazers this year (or, at least, the chances of them not all ending up on the injured list).


	5. Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Hank was moaning.

"No enemies. No shady business deals. No weird occurances. No black sheep in the family. No leads." His partner complained, thumping his head against his arms, which he had folded over his desk. "If this was a dectective novel, I'd demand my money back."

While Nick couldn't help but agree, complaining about it wasn't helping his mood any. This case was starting to feel like a hopeless mess, one of those nightmare cases that dragged on and on until the public forgot about them, one of those cases he could see himself telling rookie cops about, decades from now: 'There was this fellow, turned into a week-old corpse overnight.' And not one of the rookies would believe it until they irritated the captain somehow and were told to work a cold case. He blinked, bemusedly, at the computer screen in front of him. That particular mental ramble had sounded even more melodramatic than his partner's griping. Time for some exercise before he lost all track of his sanity.

"Hey, I'm going to head over to the guy's office again, maybe I'll catch something we missed before." The hasty explanation was waved off by his partner, who still had four of their victim's old datebooks to sort through. Nick didn't envy him - he was beginning to suspect Thomas Marksburg had an undiagnosed case of OCD. The man wrote every event he might possibly go to down in those tiny books.

The office still had a gaping hole where Thomas usually worked - his office was closed off and quiet in an otherwise bustling workplace. The man's secretary still wasn't there, but he knew that it was because the company had sent her home for the time being, rather than any foul play or guilty conscience. After briefly checking in with the office manager, he slipped into the still office and shut the door behind him, drawing the blinds mostly closed and flipping on the desk light. Thomas' desk chair was more comfortable than his, he noted as he slumped into it. Maybe the man was murdered for his comfortable office furniture. It seemed Hank's long-case madness was beginning to hit him as well. Sighing to himself, he started sifting through desk drawers, looking for details of the man's life they might have missed before. They knew he was a recently-reformed non-smoker, the half-finished packs of gum in several flavors spoke to that. Pens were kept in neat little containers, and every one of them worked - an extremely organized fellow, and they knew that already too. There was a locked drawer, which opened with one of the smaller keys kept on the man's keychain - there were only business papers there, neatly organized by client, all of them clients with current contracts with the company, none of them with any complaints against the company or the man.

He watched the office at large continue on with its work outside this glass-walled room. Most of the workers ignored him, or at least pretended to. A few shot him outraged looks, as if they blamed him for Thomas' death or, probably more correctly, were angry that they hadn't found the killer yet.

One person shot him nervous glances, but he already knew why. The _Seeleute_ was watching him as one might watch a wasp stuck in the room, just to make sure it wasn't gearing up to attack. Since Eddie had only laughed at him when he'd asked how he could stop scaring every innocent Grimm creature he ran across, he did his best to look non-threatening, but he was pretty sure it wasn't working.

The last drawer held neatly filed business cards - a section for Thomas', a section for what appeared to be local business contacts, a section for more far-flung contacts, and then what he could only call 'other' which didn't seem to fit in any category, but all seemed fairly benign - personal cards, cards for maintanence companies, and the like. He sighed and started to shut the drawer, when something shiny caught his eye. Underneath the cards, there was the gleam of glossy paper, like a photograph. Once he'd moved away the cards, he found it was a photograph, evidently of an office holiday party. There was Thomas, a few of the office workers he knew on sight but not by name, and... And the _Seeleute_. The longing look on her face was unmistakable. What was that Eddie said about them being monogamous, steadfast creatures? Picture in hand, he decided it was high time he had a chat with this girl, even if she did look at him like he might suddenly decide she was the next big bad on his list.

As he stepped out of Thomas' office, he saw his target's bright blue pumps disappearing around the corner towards the elevator. He hurried after, and when he saw her fleeing into an open elevator, he ran to catch it, only just mangaging to squeeze inside with the _Seeleute_. She cowered against the far wall, watching him with wide eyes.

"I'm not here to hurt you, take it easy." He tried to reassure her, keeping his hand well away from his service weapon. "I just wanted to ask you about Thomas Marksburg."

"I didn't do anything to him. I barely even knew him. " She stuttered, only barely managing to meet his gaze.

"I know... what's your name?" He kept his voice gentle, his posture non-threatening as he could.

"Ch..Charlotte?" He'd have to ask Eddie again and get a more productive answer - this was ridiculous.

"Charlotte. I know you didn't know him - but I think you might have wanted to, yes?" He questioned, holding out the photo he had found so she could see it. Tentatively she reached out to take it, her expression crumpling from fear to sorrow.

"He never even looked at me. I don't think he knew what I gave him. He didn't even ask about it." She mourned softly, and Nick felt the thrill of finally catching a scent in this horribly blank case.

"You gave him something?" The prompt was gentle, and she blinked up at him with reddened eyes.

"He could have lived forever, with me. Why did someone have to kill him? He would have seen, eventually. I heard he was going to leave his wife - he might have already known. How did he die? Was he shot? Why hasn't anyone been able to find the gun?" He held up a hand, something he instantly regretted when she seemed to remember that he wasn't just the police detective looking into the death of her crush.

"I'm afraid I can't go into that, but there is a chance you could help us. When we found him, he had a little... box, open in his hand, about this big, velvet red lining inside?" He sketched out the shape of the little laquered box they had recovered, which had been steadfastly refusing any attempts to identify its maker. Her shocked gasp was like music to his ears. Her sudden tears weren't.

"I told him not to open it! I told him! He promised! He said he never would!" Giving up his former resolution to keep his distance he reached out to try and comfort her as she seemingly collapsed into hysterics. Just then, the elevator dinged open, and she fled under his outstretched hand into the lobby. He turned to chase after her, but she didn't go far. The box she had in her hands he knew, it was a copy of the one he and Hank had been staring at for almost a week. She looked at him, really looked at him, with too-wide eyes and an odd green palor, and despite the unusual face he knew that look.

" _No_!"

"I'm sorry." She sobbed, and opened the box in her hands. He watched in disbelief as, in between one heartbeat and the next, the miserable young woman collapsed and aged, becoming an eerie replica of the body that started this whole mess.

Later that night, he sat on Monroe's back porch, blankly staring up at the stars. The dull thump of heavy glass on wood roused him, and Eddie sat down beside him, taking a hefty swig of his bottle of beer. Nick picked up the one given to him, one of those select microbrews Monroe was so addicted to.

"So, if he'd been a _Seeleute_..."

"He would never have opened that box. Of course, he'd probably have one of his own already - rumor has it they learn how to make them, trap their own lifespans within it, when they're just kids." Monroe explained, heavily. He had looked stunned when he found out what had actually happened, when the shell-shocked cop had found his way to his friend's front door. "Of course, she shouldn't have done it anyway, but love makes you do stupid things, man."

Nick couldn't argue with that, but he still felt responsible. If he'd known what the box was, maybe he could have broken the news a bit more gently to the young girl. She might still be alive. If anything, it drove home just how little he knew, how he needed to learn quickly, before he could make these mistakes again. Carefully he tucked the picture of an office holiday party into his coat pocket, to keep it as a reminder.


End file.
